


Overture

by timehopper



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Minor pining, Post-Blue Lions Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:35:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26655259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timehopper/pseuds/timehopper
Summary: When the Mittelfrank Opera Company decides to stage a performance in Enbarr, Duke Felix Fraldarius makes sure he's there to witness their opening performance.
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 4
Kudos: 47





	Overture

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nunujs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nunujs/gifts).



> This fic was commissioned by the lovely Nunujs! Thank you for coming to me with such an amazing idea and image to write! I really enjoyed playing with the characters here. Felix and Dorothea have such a fun dynamic, and I hope I did it justice!

It has never been much of a secret that Felix enjoys the opera. Though he rarely has time to visit it nowadays, busy as he is as Duke Fraldarius and as the right hand of Fódlan’s king, when news travels that the Mittelfrank Opera Company plans to perform in Fhirdiad, Felix makes sure he is there to catch their opening performance. 

As always, the performance is enjoyable. Enough so that Felix does not feel the need to pay complete attention to the performers and the way they move, the way they carry themselves as they sing. Their voices are enough – these are the best singers Fódlan has to offer, of course, so it is only natural. 

Yet as Dorothea Arnault walks onto the stage, dressed in an elaborate gown and decked in sparkling gold jewelry and strings of pearls at her neck and wrists, Felix finds himself unable to look away. 

She conducts herself as gracefully here as she had on the battlefield, movements deliberate yet easy; she lifts her chin, opens her mouth, conjures forth the most beautiful melodies Felix has ever heard. He has always admired her voice, it is true; but seeing her on stage, where she belongs, where she is given the chance to bloom like the rose she had always compared herself to, Felix feels something stir in his chest.

Her gaze travels over the crowd as she sings, as if she is singing to each member individually. Or perhaps that is Felix’s imagination, enraptured as he is by her performance. But soon, her gaze falls on him, and… 

And it stays. 

She watches him as he watches her, their gazes locked. It truly does feel, in that moment, as if Dorothea is singing just for him, as if everyone around them are unwelcome spectators in a private moment.

And then, just like that, the moment ends. Dorothea’s voice quiets, trailing off in a beautiful decrescendo. She stays in place, lingering half a moment too long and almost missing her cue to exit. When she turns to take it, Dorothea glances back and throws a smile over her shoulder, just for him. 

Felix finds himself smiling back. 

* * *

When the performance ends, Felix makes his way to the opera’s entrance hall. It’s loud and crowded, Fhirdiad’s upper class chatting excitedly about the performance and sipping champagne as they mingle with the performers. 

Felix is unsurprised to find Dorothea surrounded by a small crowd of men. He debates announcing his presence to her – nobody would bat an eye if Duke Fraldarius requested a private moment with Mittelfrank’s most celebrated songstress – but he finds there is no need. Dorothea catches his eye as he approaches and excuses herself from their company without being asked. 

“Felix,” she says, bowing her head and stepping back into a curtsy. When she looks up again, there’s a glimmer in her eye, mischievous and knowing. She looks just as she had back at the academy. “Or have I lost the right to call you that? Should I address you as _Duke Fraldarius_ now?” 

Inexplicably embarrassed, Felix looks away. He still holds no fondness for his title, but as the years have gone by, he has at least acclimated to it. “Felix is fine.” 

Dorothea smiles and extends her gloved hand. For a moment, Felix hesitates, but recalling whose company he is in and the manners that befit his title, he slowly bends down to kiss it.

“My, my,” Dorothea says, withdrawing her hand once he lets it go. Her face is bright, flushed pink beneath her makeup. Her smile is radiant, even wider than before. “I see your title has taught you some manners.” 

Felix scoffs. He wonders if Dorothea can see the way his cheeks redden, too. “I’ve known them all my life.”

“So you just didn’t care.” Dorothea steps closer. She places a delicate hand on Felix’s shoulder and leans in close, her lips brushing against the shell of his ear. “Why don’t you show me over dinner? For old time’s sake.” 

She pulls back. Felix holds her gaze a moment, then nods his head, a show of respect just short of a proper bow. 

“Good,” Dorothea says. She takes Felix’s hand and leads him away.

* * *

It’s dark in Dorothea’s dressing room. The light from the hall filters in and diminishes as Felix closes the door behind them, only to be replaced by a fire in the hearth casting an orange glow over the room, its magical flames conjured by a flick of Dorothea’s wrist. 

It helps, though it is still dark. At least Felix can see Dorothea – or some of her, anyway. The fire illuminates her silhouette, casting the curves of her body and the edges of her dress in soft, warm light. She’s facing away from Felix, standing by a mirror towards the back of the room. Felix watches her move, watches her pull a pin from her hair. It comes cascading down, falling in loose waves about her shoulders, tumbling down to her lower back. 

Felix’s mouth goes dry. 

Dorothea has always been, well – attractive. Both in appearance and in skill. Had Felix been more concerned with physical appearance during their school days, or even during the war, he might even have called her beautiful. Now, though, with nothing to distract him, no war to fight or classes to attend or training to keep up with, he can’t deny it. Dorothea is beautiful, for all the thorns she purports to have.

Somehow, those very same thorns just make her all the more appealing. 

Felix steps forward, his feet carrying him almost unbidden to her side. Dorothea’s arms are raised, bent back so she can reach behind her to undo the clasp at the top of her dress. 

“Here. Let me,” he says, intending to sound impatient, but the low tone of his voice belies his nerves, as if he is afraid his voice will shatter the intimacy of the moment. 

Dorothea turns her head. He can hardly see her smile in the dim light of the room and the shadows the flickering firelight cast over her face, but Felix can imagine it well enough: small, smug, a quirk of the lip at one side. Like she knows something he doesn’t, something she won’t tell him; or like she’s ensnared some unsuspecting fool in a trap. 

Felix thinks he wouldn’t mind being ensnared.

“You think I can’t do it myself?” Dorothea asks. There’s a sharpness to her voice that’s mostly for show. Felix is aware that he is not the best at reading people, but he knows this much: she’s pleased. He’s been on the receiving end of her real ire enough to recognize when it’s absent. 

“You’re taking too long,” he says, masking the real truth of why he’s doing this with a half-truth. She really is taking far longer than he’d like, but he also just wants to touch her. To feel her skin beneath his hands. 

“I wasn’t aware there was any rush.” 

“There isn’t.” 

The clasp falls away. Dorothea’s dress falls open, slipping down past her shoulders. Felix reaches for the sleeves to slide them down further, over the gloves that cling to her arms up to her elbows. 

“So gentle,” Dorothea teases. There’s an airiness to her voice that Felix can’t quite place. One he doesn’t want to think about. 

“Would you prefer I wasn’t?” 

Dorothea laughs. “No, I suppose not.” 

There’s a short pause as Dorothea turns to him. The sleeves and bodice of her dress have fallen away completely, bunched around her waist. She’s completely exposed to him now, having worn nothing beneath the dress. Felix can’t help but look down, and as he does, she wraps her arms around his shoulders, lacing her fingers at his neck. Felix takes her waist in his hands, fingers brushing against her skin. 

He looks back up, back into her eyes, so pretty and green. 

She kisses him.

Felix is no stranger to kissing. Dorothea is far from his first, but she remains the best. Felix has kissed her only once before, at the end of the war, when he left to return to Fraldarius and she departed for Enbarr. She had leaned in close, pressed her lips to his, and lingered far longer than was proper for a goodbye kiss. 

He had regretted not kissing her properly, then. Now is another story entirely. 

He tilts his head to deepen the kiss, eyes slipping shut as she relaxes in his arms. One of Dorothea’s hands slides up the back of his neck to play with a loose strand of hair at Felix’s nape, and Felix pulls her closer. 

They part – too soon – and Dorothea smiles at him. Felix doesn’t quite smile back, but something relaxes in him, a knot of tension he hadn’t realized had been coiling in his chest. He leans in and kisses Dorothea again, relishing in the soft noise that escapes her throat, and backs her up against the mirror. 

She tilts her head back and opens her mouth, allowing him to slip his tongue past her lips. Felix does, hesitantly at first, but when she meets him with enthusiasm he loses that last inhibition and presses even closer. Dorothea smiles against his lips, sighs, and pulls him in; Felix tangles a hand in her hair.

They stay like that a while, kissing against the mirror, hands roaming and breaths mingling. It’s only when Dorothea pushes him away lightly so she can remove her gloves that Felix’s mind catches up with his body, and he realizes that he wants more. 

That _she_ wants more.

The first satin glove slips down her forearm. Dorothea plucks it off with a tug to each finger. Felix watches, entranced, as inch by inch the smooth, flawless skin of her forearm is revealed. When she moves to repeat the motion with the other one, Felix stops her, a palm on her elbow. 

She raises a brow. Felix has to look away, suddenly too shy to meet her gaze. She seems to understand, though, and Felix can hear the smile in her voice when she says, “Go on, then.”

Felix nods. With only a little embarrassment, he lifts her arm, slips his fingers beneath the end of her glove, and uses his teeth to pull it off her. 

When he opens his eyes, Dorothea is staring at him with wide, stunned eyes. Felix can’t help but smile around the material. For once, he’s caught her off guard. 

She’s quick to try and regain her composure, the only hint of it a tiny bob of her throat as she swallows. “Felix,” she breathes, name reverent on her tongue.

He kisses her again, and this time it’s faster, more insistent; there’s more heat behind it, more need. Dorothea kisses back just as fervently, her hands in his hair and at his lower back. Felix takes that as encouragement and slips his hands down, down beneath the bunched material of her dress gathered at her waist. 

Dorothea gasps, breaking the kiss. Felix guides her into turning around, and she braces herself against the mirror, head tilted so she can watch him over her shoulder. 

“I thought we were going to dinner,” she says, voice so low it’s nearly a whisper. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you wanted something else entirely.” 

And he does. In this moment, more than anything, he wants this dress off her. He wants to see her, feel her bare skin against his. He wants to – and he almost berates himself for the thought – make love to her. 

But Felix has always been better at translating his thoughts into actions than words. And so that’s just what he does: he leans forward and presses his lips to Dorothea’s neck, just above the topmost row of pearls that make up her necklace. 

She shivers in his hold; he smiles against her skin, grazes it with his teeth. 

“In that case…” Dorothea’s head falls back. Felix kisses a line up to her ear, right where it meets her jaw. Her skin is so soft. “We should probably move this somewhere more comfortable.” 

Reluctantly, Felix lets her up. He nods, meeting her eye in the mirror, and she smiles back at him. When he takes a step back, Dorothea slips the dress down, off her hips and to the floor. The expensive, ostentatious garment pools around her ankles, and she steps out of it, past Felix, walking backwards toward the couch by the hearth. 

Felix watches her go, enraptured. He can’t help but compare the way she moves now to the way she had performed: every step she takes is deliberate, flowing. Meant to entice, to seduce. Felix knows this, and yet he is helpless to resist. 

But that’s fine. He hadn’t come here with the intention of resisting her. 

Dorothea lies back on the couch, reclining on it as if this were her private chambers and not some unfamiliar dressing room in an unfamiliar city. She acts as if she owns the place, and Felix can’t deny that is part of her appeal; so when she beckons to him, he follows readily, stripping down and leaving a trail of clothing from the mirror to the couch as he goes. 

When he reaches her, she pulls him down. Felix falls into her, slotting between her legs perfectly, as if they had done this a thousand times before. She hooks her heels around the backs of his knees; he slides a hand up her side to rest on her breast. They kiss, eyes slipping shut against the low, flickering light of the room. 

Felix no longer needs to see her. All he wants is to feel her, to let her envelop him in her warmth, her passion. 

He kisses down her neck, smiles when she gasps and throws her head back. The hand not on her breast slides between her legs, fingertips slipping between her folds. 

She’s wet. 

Felix’s cock twitches. The realization of how much she wants this – wants him – sets him aflame. He had already been aroused, but now he is almost painfully so; still, he wants to do this right. Wants to make her feel good, rather than simply take his pleasure from her. 

He twists his wrist so that his index finger brushes against her entrance while his thumb slides over her clit. Dorothea gasps again, back arching against Felix as he rubs slow, light circles over it. He leans forward and kisses her jaw, her neck, her collarbones. 

Dorothea laughs. Felix shivers and groans, feeling the sound more than hearing it. Being so close to her is intoxicating.

“You know what you’re doing,” she says. 

Felix pulls back, but doesn’t go far. “Don’t act so surprised.” 

Another laugh, and Dorothea places a hand on the back of his head, coaxing him down to her breast. “Sorry. I just remember you being so focused on fighting and swordplay…” 

“Mm.” Felix wants to take offense to that – to the insinuation that he’d never taken lovers before now, or that she’s surprised he’s not terrible at this – but he can’t, really. She’s right; he’d never concerned himself with matters of sex during the war, despite having some experience with it. 

He doesn’t want to think about that now, though. All he wants to think about is the way Dorothea feels in his mouth once he closes his mouth around her nipple. 

She sighs and leans back further into the couch. Her hand is still at Felix’s head, though now her fingers have tangled in it, loosening the tie he still insists on wearing. It falls to the ground, brushing against his shoulder as it goes, and though Felix feels some mild irritation at her carelessness, the way her legs twitch as he gently sucks on her distracts him. 

“Oh…” Dorothea’s hand clenches. Felix pulls back to tease and lick at her other breast, his hand speeding up between her legs. Dorothea’s legs slide up to lock around Felix’s waist, and he slips a finger into her. 

“Ah!” It catches her by surprise, but the sound isn’t an uncomfortable one, Felix knows that much. The way she sinks back, biting her lip against a smile, tells him that much. She moans, hips lifting and rocking against Felix’s hand. 

Felix lifts himself away from her breast, kissing the swell of it as he goes. “You like that.” It’s not a question. 

“Yes,” Dorothea breathes. She moans, the sound of it almost as beautiful as her singing. Felix slips another finger into her just to hear it again. 

He focuses on the sounds she makes, paying careful attention to the way she reacts every time he curls his fingers inside of her. Dorothea gazes at him with hazy eyes and parted lips, silently begging to be kissed. Felix grants her wish, leaning in and swallowing her moans – allowing her to swallow his, as well. 

A hand snakes between them, small and soft and delicate. Dorothea’s fingertips trace over Felix’s chest, his stomach, his hips. Felix shudders in their wake, and he breaks the kiss involuntarily, breaths coming in short, heavy bursts. Her hands are so unlike his own – where his are rough and calloused from years of swordplay, hers are smooth and elegant. Dorothea knows how to use a sword, and she had raised it more than once during the war, but never since, to Felix’s knowledge. She has the hands of a mage, of a healer. He’s glad for that – glad they no longer live in a world where they must fight to survive. 

He loses his train of thought when Dorothea wraps her hand around his cock.

It’s Felix’s turn to gasp this time. He tries in vain to cut it off, but it’s too late. Dorothea has heard him, and she leans in with a smirk. 

“You like that,” she teases. 

Felix bows his head. “Shut up.”

Dorothea laughs. She strokes him slowly, taking her time to rile him up, to force him either to ask out loud or to thrust up into her hand. 

He chooses neither.

Felix allows her to tease him a moment longer, and then he pulls himself away, lifting Dorothea’s legs by the backs of her knees. She makes a small sound in the back of her throat – surprise or pleasure, he isn’t sure – but she allows Felix to line himself up and press the head of his cock to her entrance. 

He looks up at her, right into her eyes, and waits. 

Dorothea nods. “Please.” 

He pushes inside. 

Felix moves as slowly as he can, holding back despite how much he wants to completely bury himself in her. It’s only when he’s fully sheathed himself that he pauses to take a breath, not having realized he had been holding it. 

Dorothea shifts beneath him, and Felix swears he sees stars. 

It’s been some time since he’d last taken a lover, but even so, he doesn’t remember anyone feeling this good. Dorothea is hot and tight around him, slick enough that moving inside her is easy. Felix pulls out, just the smallest bit, and pushes back in, testing to see what she likes and how she likes it. 

Dorothea smiles. It’s the last thing Felix sees before she drags him into a deep, devouring kiss. 

She rocks her hips against him, moving in a perfect rhythm to meet each of Felix’s thrusts. It isn’t long before they hit a pace they both seem to like: slow and deep, careful and sure. They take their time to enjoy each other, to let their hands and mouths roam, to adjust angles so Felix can hit Dorothea as deep as she wants, and so she can press her chest to his the way he likes. 

He lifts her hips and leans forward, up above her, nearly covering her upper body with his own. Dorothea breaks the kiss, gasping sharply and rocking against Felix as he grinds into her.

“I – Felix, I–” she bites her lip, a high-pitched moan tearing from her throat. She tenses below him, brows knit together, and Felix bends to kiss the shell of her ear. 

“Dorothea.” It’s all he has to say; the moment her name leaves his lips, low and breathy, she arches and spasms beneath Felix, clenching down around his cock. She comes in what feels like waves, body twitching every time he rocks against her. She’s so tight around him, her nails so sharp as they dig into his shoulders– 

Felix keeps going as long as he can, but just as Dorothea relaxes beneath him, he pulls out and spends over her stomach. Felix’s chest heaves as he tries to catch his breath, to steady himself and calm his pounding heart. When he finally finishes, the last remnants of his orgasm subsiding, he looks up into Dorothea’s eyes. 

She’s smiling at him. 

At the same moment she reaches for him, Felix crawls up her body and kisses her deeply. They press together, him on top of her. It’s messy, cum smearing between the two of them, but Felix can’t care. Not when he feels so good. Not when she seems so happy. 

Dorothea is so soft against him. So warm. Felix feels like he could kiss her for hours. He knows, however, that he can’t, and so slowly, reluctantly, he pulls away, standing on surprisingly shaky legs to go fetch something to clean them off with.

He finds a facecloth, stained in one corner with old makeup. It’s the best he’s likely to find, so he brings it over and gently cleans his spend from her skin, wiping himself down only after she’s completely clean. 

“Such a gentleman,” Dorothea teases. “I might even be able to forgive you for going out of order.” 

Felix snorts. He looks away so she can’t see the smile tugging at his lips. “I still intend to take you to dinner,” he says.

“Then you’re definitely forgiven.” Dorothea sits up to make room for Felix on the couch. He considers going to get dressed instead, but the way she looks at him, sincerely hopeful as she pats the space next to her, convinces him to sit. 

Dorothea cups his face in one hand and leans in to kiss him again. Felix smiles into it and tilts his head, welcoming her.

Dinner can wait. For now, he would rather just bask in the afterglow and enjoy her company. He has a feeling they will be spending many an evening together after this. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this and think you might like to see more, have a chat, or would like to get to know me, please check out my twitter [@tim3hopp3r](https://twitter.com/tim3hopp3r).
> 
> And if you would like to find out how to support me, I have a handy list of links right [here](https://twitter.com/tim3hopp3r/status/1355219789560471554). Please check it out! I wouldn't be able to do this without people like you supporting me. ♥
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


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